“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”~ Mark Twain
I didn’t know whether or not to put this for April when the idiot was put into the spotlight or when the idiot struck, which I heard about in July. I went for the response and reply. If I am wrong, forgive me. I just was hoping to have a summer free of this award. But we can’t and so here we go.
Andrew Robert Rector is suing ESPN and Major League Baseball for ten million dollars.
$10,000,000.
WHY? Because he fell asleep during a Yankees baseball game in the fourth inning and cameras caught him in the act. And the commentators had a few words to say about it.
But you see, nobody did anything to him. Even the fan next to him was too busy eating ball park food to have disturbed or bothered Rector. And so what Rector is suing for is vituperative utterances.
Basically in lay men’s terms he is suing for ten million dollars for abusive comments that were made on the air. And then it also goes into comments that were added over the Internet via some sports website because he said that people were making fun of him.
Here’s the video that was promptly posted to YouTube. Some of the comments here even are about the same caliber and others (like myself) think that this lawsuit is stupid and frivolous.
See if you can find anything abusive towards the sleeping man by these sports commentators. The only thing that they did do that was out of the ordinary was continue to talk about him sleeping and how long could he sleep while NOT commentating on the game. But is that an offense towards Rector? Is that reason good enough to sue for millions and millions of dollars??
This man should have realized that by leaving the comfort of his own home and going to a professional baseball game that there was a distinct possibility of his image being put on television, whether intentionally or accidentally (such as passing by in the background or whatever.)
He should have realized that after he woke up that he might have been filmed or caught and captured on camera. If you don’t want these humiliating moments to happen— DO NOT FALL ASLEEP IN PUBLIC. Period.
Yes I know… its humiliating. Its actually happened to me too. I was on the late night news for being asleep as a child at a high school basketball game that my elder brother was playing in. It was the championship game and so there was a camera crew, and I dozed off until the next time the buzzer rang out. But it was too late. It was filmed and then displayed at the next airing of the local news.
Rector suing for ten million dollars is ridiculous. Greedy guy indeed. He’s not suffering anything but comments on YouTube that he would do so much better by ignoring them. Including this blog post. But this blog post serves as a reminder that we all are human and do stupid and ridiculous things. Its just that some of it is actually avoidable… but some members of the human race do it any way. And that’s when I come in to hand them their award.
Congratulations, Andrew Robert Rector.
Dambreaker 